Talk:Wastewater treatment

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 10 September 2020 and 21 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Taru1234, Atsushi Tim Saito, Iyahagetenaishi. Peer reviewers: Iyahagetenaishi.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 04:48, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 5 February 2021 and 21 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Earechiga, Monicadonayre. Peer reviewers: Bferrell123.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 04:48, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Merge this article with wastewater treatment plant?

I would propose to delete the content of this page and redirect it to Wastewater treatment plant. Does anyone disagree? (Mll mitch (talk) 13:50, 26 January 2015 (UTC))

• What would be the advantage of doing so? In present form, this disambiguation page serves as a succinct fork to the various types of wastewater requiring treatment. In the wastewater treatment plant article, that distinction may become obscured by the various types of treatment applicable to more than one category of wastewater. Thewellman (talk) 16:31, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree with the proposal by Mll mitch. I don't think this is really a proper disambiguation page how they are meant to be used. We could make the distinction quite clear in the beginning of the wastewater treatment plant article. Note there is also only one article on sewage treatment (sewage treatment plant redirects to sewage treatment). Note also inconsistency with "reclaimed water" and "water reclamation" - should also be merged into one page in my view. There is no page for "water treatment plant" it redirects to "water treatment". To try and achieve some consistency, should the content of "wastewater treatment plant" be transferred to "wastewater treatment" and a redirect be made? EvM-Susana (talk) 12:49, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

I would like to come back to my suggestion above which has not yet been sufficiently discussed. No further reactions have come in. My point is that to achieve wastewater treatment, one needs a wastewater treatment plant. Therefore, it doesn't make sense to have a separate page for "wastewater treatment" from wastewater treatment plant. Therefore, they should be merged (just like it already is the case for sewage treatment and sewage treatment plant). Thoughts? Thewellman, Velella ? EvM-Susana (talk) 06:33, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

• The disambiguation page has been expanded to article format with main article links. Since wastewater treatment is broader than sewage treatment, there are significant differences in the structure and main article links of these articles proposed for merger in comparison to articles on sewage treatment and STPs. The range of disposal options defining wastewater treatment objectives is generally wider than (and often includes) the range of uses defining water treatment objectives. Water treatment often produces sludges or brines requiring wastewater treatment. The fact that articles of lesser complexity may have been perceived as appropriate for merger does not explain advantages for this proposed merger. Thewellman (talk) 15:54, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

I can't quite follow you, even though I am trying :-). My point is that both pages "wastewater treatment" and "wastewater treatment plant" are rather short and kind of incomplete without each other. I think a merged page would actually work very nicely, as you cannot have a wastewater treatment process without the physical infrastructure (plant) to go with it. And if the page on wastewater treatment does not yet cover all types of wastewater, it should be expanded so that it does. I would call the merged page probably "wastewater treatment plant" and it could contains section on "Process fundamentals" and then "Types of plants". EvM-Susana (talk) 20:54, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

• Perhaps we have different information structure preferences. If I understand correctly, your objective is to put as much information as possible into a single large article. I, on the other hand, am frustrated by the necessity to read through a long article of poorly defined structure evolved from uncoordinated contributions of multiple authors and requiring frequent back-tracking to an ambiguous table of contents to find the specific information of interest. I suggest a tree of shorter articles individually preceded by disambiguation links, containing short section paragraphs with main article links for expanded description of subordinate subjects, and followed by a list of see also links in case the reader didn't find the subject of interest in the first pass. Thewellman (talk) 01:14, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

We have two short pages Wastewater treatment and Wastewater treatment plant. Would make sense to merge them to Wastewater treatment. I could see splitting it off if the main article was to big but it isn't Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:57, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice Doc James I have now gone ahead and made the merger, moving the content from wastewater treatment plant to here. I think the split that we had before was very artificial and led to doubling up of work. Now it makes much more sense to have it all on one page and we can put our energy into improving this one page.EvM-Susana (talk) 21:08, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

More and better photos needed

I am planning to replace the photo of this article which is from 1984 and in Germany, treatment process of a sugar factory. I think we can find more representative ones. EvM-Susana (talk) 21:25, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

• I certainly support adding good photographs to this article, although I prefer integrating them into the text rather than in a gallery. The present image is a rather nice photo of a clarifier, which is one of the most common wastewater treatment mechanisms. I would prefer not to lose it unless a similarly focused replacement is available. Thewellman (talk) 22:27, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Wastewater treatment may include a primary clarifier (usually called setting tank) or a secondary clarifier. On this picture it is not actually clear what it is. If you read the German full text it talks about a tank where thickened sludge is settled, so I think they might be referring to a secondary clarifier. I think we need one where we are more certain on what it is. I will look around. EvM-Susana (talk) 22:33, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Actually there are a lot of photos in Wikimedia Commons, so it would be easy to pick one from there. Most of them are for municipal wastewater treatment plants - or do you prefer one from an industrial wastewater treatment plant to differentiate it from the article on sewage treatment?EvM-Susana (talk) 22:35, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

• I think the difference between a primary or secondary clarifier might be significant in the sewage treatment article, but unnecessary in this article's broad description of clarifiers to treat many different waste streams. My primary interest would be in finding a photo showing the entire clarifier from a perspective illustrating the overflow weirs and the sludge and/or scum collection mechanisms. Thewellman (talk) 22:44, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't know, isn't the biological treatment aspect more important? So you are mainly looking for a primary settling tank, did I understand right? Anyway, we can add several photos, there are lots in Wikimedia Commons which is good. Just need to get around to doing it. :-) EvM-Susana (talk) 22:54, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

• We already have a clarifier photo (unless you find a better one to replace it.) A photo of a mechanized biochemical oxidation facility (like a trickling filter or activated sludge unit) would be a nice addition, as would a photo of a filter press or drum or similar physical (non-biological) filtration plant, and photos of a simple excavated settling basin, and/or a facultative lagoon or stabilization pond possibly showing inlet or overflow details. Photos of chemical oxidation plants might be less informative, since they often resemble a bunch of tanks and piping of uncertain function. Thewellman (talk) 04:19, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Link to Ammonium nitrate article

The link to the ammonium nitrate article has no explanation, therefore I removed it from this Wastewater treatment article. Likewise, the ammonium nitrate article does not explain the relationship between sewage or sludge treatment, and ammonium nitrate. Wikipedia references are not used with "See also" links; authors should use references to support text in the instant article. If someone can write something that explains how ammonium nitrate relates to wastewater treatment, then the reference cited below may be useful.

See also (...)

* [[Ammonium nitrate]]
<ref>http://www.researchgate.net/publication/271352551_Potential_for_nutrient_recovery_and_biogas_production_from_blackwater_food_waste_and_greywater_in_urban_source_control_systems Use of blackwater to make chemical fertilizer</ref>

Moreau1 (talk) 21:47, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Grit removal

I have removed the grit removal section from this article. Grit removal is uniquely associated with sewage treatment and inclusion here would duplicate coverage in that article, which is well linked from this article, and from the Grit removal redirect. Inclusion in this article with similar precedence as sedimentation (of which it is an application) would imply an inappropriate significance in the wider scope of treatment of other wastewaters with no grit, or no requirement for an oxidation process which might be adversely impacted by the presence of grit. Thewellman (talk) 19:37, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Inappropriate weight

I have removed the following paragraph describing NEWater because it is only one of a large number of wastewater treatment technologies. Comparable description of each of these technologies would produce an inappropriately lengthy article, and the present prevalence of NEWater in the wastewater treatment field does not warrant mention in this article. The paragraph may be appropriate for inclusion in one of the subordinate articles accessible through main article links. Thewellman (talk) 15:19, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

A notable example that combines both wastewater treatment and drinking water treatment is NEWater in Singapore. NEWater is a technology practised in Singapore that converts wastewater to potable water. More specifically, it is treated wastewater (sewage) that has been purified using dual-membrane (via microfiltration and reverse osmosis) and ultraviolet technologies, in addition to conventional water treatment processes. The water is potable and is consumed by humans, but is mostly used by industries requiring high purity water. The total capacity of the plants is about 75,700 m³/day. Some 6% of this is used for indirect potable use, equal to about 1% of Singapore's potable water requirement of 14 m³/s. The rest is used at wafer fabrication plants and other non-potable applications in industries in Woodlands, Tampines, Pasir Ris, and Ang Mo Kio.

References

Adding 'India' under the regulations section.

Hi Everyone, I was planning to add a sub-section titled 'india' under the already existing 'Regulations' section to increase representation in this article. Does anyone have any comments or feedback on this? Do let me know. Taru1234 (talk) 07:45, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi Taru1234, the section that you added didn't contain much about regulation. So I have re-arranged the structure there a bit. Overall, I am not sure if there is much point adding country examples here, given that there are dedicated sub-articles for that, e.g. in the case of India: Water supply and sanitation in India. I am undecided if it's worth bringing up some country examples (but then which countries get selected?) or to make sure people know they can read more at the "Water supply and sanitation in Country X" articles (and editors should update those rather). I've just left a similar question on the talk page of reclaimed water where the same question arose. EMsmile (talk) 04:36, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Changed setup for country examples

I have re-arranged the content for the country examples by moving the content to relevant sub-articles and then using the excerpt function. This way, we would only have to update the information in one place in future, not two. However, I am undecided how many country examples we should allow/encourage. So far we have four: two from wealthy countries, two from low- and middle income countries. That's perhaps a good balance. Perhaps add another one from each continent, over time (Africa and Latin America still missing). Or maybe it's enough to have the navbox for all the other countries anyhow. EMsmile (talk) 01:03, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I've moved the country examples to sewage treatment. I think they fit better there.EMsmile (talk) 13:37, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Changes to Disposal or reuse section

I have found that the information on this section is not cited, so I will attempt to find the original sources or find new sources that complete the information that was previously on this section. I am unsure if I should make a subsection to talk a bit more specifically about disposal and reuse separately, as I am already planning on adding a subsection on the environmental impacts of wastewater when disposed. Monicadonayre (talk) 14:57, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

I've used the excerpt function for the "reuse" section now. With regards to environmental impacts, check if that's not better added to sewage treatment (there is a bit of overlap there). EMsmile (talk) 13:38, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Adding more countries to Examples by Country List

I think it's important to provide good global representation in this article, so I thought maybe it would be a good idea to add a couple more countries to the list. I noticed their wasn't a link to Japan wastewater treatment and an example, so I'm adding it to the list. Earechiga (talk) 06:02, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

I've moved the country examples to sewage treatment. I think they fit better there. EMsmile (talk) 13:36, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Improving Oxidation section of article

I noticed that there were a few terms in the oxidation section of the article that were missing, so I'm going to add them to that section of the article. Additionally, I think that the oxidation section could be expanded on a little bit more. I don't plan on changing it too much, I just want to add a couple more sentences to make a little more clear and informative.Earechiga (talk) 06:06, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Hey Emilia, I agree that section needs a copyedit as the text is not easy to read. I think the same type of editing should be applied to the lead so it is an accurate representation of the rest of the article. Monicadonayre (talk) 02:42, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Should the section on "Global situation" be moved to sewage treatment?

I am undecided if we should move the section on "Global situation" to sewage treatment? The text and sources in that section talk about "wastewater" but it's essentially all about municipal wastewater (although sometimes this is not clearly stated). EMsmile (talk) 13:43, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Problems with naming of the article and overlap with sewage treatment

Please see here a discussion about problems with naming of the article and overlap with sewage treatment.EMsmile (talk) 13:45, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Merge with wastewater

I am proposing to merge wastewater to here, which would be consistent with industrial wastewater, which is also redirecting to industrial wastewater treatment. I think it makes more sense to deal with the material (wastewater) and its treatment/management in one article rather than splitting it over two articles artificially. I am proposing the same for sewage and sewage treatment, i.e. also to merge them together. EMsmile (talk) 14:57, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

I suggest the subject of wastewater is only ambiguously related to wastewater treatment, as some wastewaters require no treatment. The simple fact that water may no longer be needed or suitable for its present use does not imply it requires treatment for another use.

As stated in the earliest discussion on this page, we seem to have different information structure preferences. If I understand correctly, your objective is to put as much information as possible into a single large article. I, on the other hand, am frustrated by the necessity to read through a long article of poorly defined structure evolved from uncoordinated contributions of multiple authors and requiring frequent back-tracking to an ambiguous table of contents to find the specific information of interest. I suggest shorter articles individually preceded by disambiguation links, containing short section paragraphs with main article links for expanded description of subordinate subjects, and followed by a list of see also links in case the reader didn't find the subject of interest in the first pass.

I don't mean to discourage your efforts to consolidate the information within these articles, but we all should recognize the likely effect of later uncoordinated edits by different editors, who often repeat information from another part of the article they failed to notice because they didn't take time to read the full article. Only a few editors can devote the increased individual focus required to coordinate a single large article in comparison to several smaller ones. The distributed nature of Wikipedia contributions is better suited to smaller articles. Thewellman (talk) 19:16, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi Thewellman thanks for your response. I don't actually have a general preference for larger articles over smaller articles. In fact, I have often split off sections and converted them into sub-articles. I fully believe in the article/sub-article tree structure of Wikipedia. It's just that with the two particular topics of wastewater and wastewater treatment, there is so much overlap (even more pronounced with sewage and sewage treatment). Also, I have observed that inexperienced editors (often students) seem to add willy nilly to either of the two articles and then we have to clean up after them (don't their lecturers ever do QA checking on their students' work?). For example, I see a section on "legislation" appear in wastewater. Then a country example section appear in either of the two articles, sections about environmental issues appear in both articles... As both articles look small at first sight, students might think "great, I can add more content here!". I think if the two articles were combined together, they would feel more complete and students would be less tempted to add additional sections unnecessarily. It's hard to talk about wastewater treatment without talking about the characteristics of the wastewater and its sources. And it's hard not to mention wastewater management issues when talking about wastewater. So the two topics are so closely linked that they might as well be treated on the one page. The fact that some wastewater doesn't get treatment, or doesn't require treatment, is no contradiction and can easily be explained in the article. EMsmile (talk) 23:21, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

One thought that crossed my mind is whether a combined article should perhaps be called "wastewater management" rather. It would then contain the sources, characteristics, treatment (or no treatment), reuse and disposal options. The actual treatment technologies to be used are anyway in the relevant sub-articles, so it's not like an article on "wastewater management" would get very large. It would remain as an overview article.EMsmile (talk) 23:21, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

By the way, did you notice how I have added excerpts lately? I think that works really well for overview articles and prevents us from having to maintain the same information on two pages. EMsmile (talk) 23:21, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

My last point is that I think the combined article for "industrial wastewater" and "industrial wastewater treatment" shows nicely how the end result can look. The two used to be separate but I combined them some years ago (edit: I thought I had combined them but can't find any record of that on the talk pages; so maybe I didn't and they were always combined) and I think that worked out fine. There has been less mop-up work required for that article over the years, compared to the two wastewater articles (OK, it's also a smaller topic). EMsmile (talk) 23:23, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

I invite attention to WP:Article size. Aside from issues of readability and reader attention span, articles larger than 32 kB are difficult for older browsers and slower internet connections. Sewage is a fairly well-defined type of wastewater with a present article size of 21 kB. The sewage treatment article at 59 kB is already nearly twice the recommended maximum prior to merging contents of the 21 kB sewage article. Industrial wastewater is a potentially more variable subject presently included within the industrial wastewater treatment article which, at 45 kB, is about 30% larger than the recommended maximum size. The wastewater article has been artificially limited to 12 kB by the relatively narrow definition provided by the first source citation. The wastewater treatment article contains another 20 kB even with that limited definition. In reality, wastewater also includes once-through cooling water and hydropower discharges with thermal changes and potentially minor chemical changes associated with dissolved gas equilibria or dissolution of piping materials.

While I recognize the difficulty of weeding duplicative material from different articles, it is easier for specialist editors to individually edit small articles than to collaborate on a single large article. The present sewage treatment article is bloated by attempting to include the wide variety of tertiary treatment processes (functionally industrial waste treatment processes) potentially required by presence of pharmaceuticals or industrial wastes. It may be more functional, in the longer term, to make the wastewater article an annotated list of links to specific types of wastewater, and have articles on each type of wastewater discussing potentially useful treatment schemes with links to articles describing treatment processes which may be useful for more than one type of wastewater. Thewellman (talk) 03:45, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Where did you see that "at 45 kB, is about 30% larger than the recommended maximum size"? The page WP:Article_size provides as guidance for readable prose: "> 60 kB Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material)". And "< 40 kB Length alone does not justify division". It also says there "As browsers have improved, there is no need for haste in splitting an article when it starts getting large. Sometimes an article simply needs to be big to give the subject adequate coverage.". So I don't think the readable prose of the articles is a (main) factor here. I don't think the sewage treatment article is overly bloated. It's 33 kB readable prose, not a lot (you said 59 kB? Are we using different tools? Oh wait, I think you quoted the number of bytes but the guidance in the "article size" refers to readable prose - so I think that's the parameter that matters). (If you feel a need, you could split off the "tertiary treatment" to a sub-article, but to me at this stage it feels like unnecessary extra work). EMsmile (talk) 04:44, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

The Technical issues section includes the 32 kB figure. The reference to haste in splitting large articles seems of questionable relevance to this discussion of combining small articles. I suggest the examples illustrating probability that combined articles could grow to an unwieldy size should discourage their combination. Thewellman (talk) 07:40, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

I think that section is outdated. It says "The text on a 32 kB page takes about five seconds to load for editing on a dial-up connection, with accompanying images taking additional time, so pages significantly larger than this are difficult for older browsers to display." (the current size of the page is only 14 kB by the way, I did some clean-ups, see next section below). Elsewhere on the page it talks about readable prose as a parameter which I find much clearer: See here. Either way, the articles on wastewater and wastewater treatment are not long articles (especially now that their sewage-related content has been moved). So length alone is not a convincing argument in my opinion. The question is, what is more logical and what will make it easier to maintain good articles in future? Because the "wastewater" article is so short, I see that students are tempted to add content to it, even though the same content already exists at "sewage treatment" or at "wastewater treatment". This is the problem that I want to avoid. I had taken those articles off my watchlist for about a year and when I came back to them I saw a heap of content added to the wrong articles (which I have now cleaned up, I think, but it's taken me quite a few hours). The article structure is obviously confusing for students, they don't know what to put where. If we only had two articles instead of four, I think they would find it easier. But perhaps it comes down to personal preferences (note that industrial wastewater is together with industrial wastewater treatment in one article. Also agricultural wastewater is together with agricultural wastewater treatment in one article). EMsmile (talk) 07:55, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

I hear the voice of a generalist who prefers to edit a single article rather than encourage specialists to edit subordinate articles. I encourage you to discuss your opinions of the Wikipedia guidelines on the talk page for those guidelines. Thewellman (talk) 18:44, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

I have removed the merger template now, as per discussion here. The page wastewater has been converted into a disambiguation page. Good solution although one problem is all the wikilinks that still need fixing. EMsmile (talk) 06:38, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Streamlining wastewater treatment, wastewater better

Independently of the merger discussion (for which there may or may not be consensus over time), I've just done some work which will hopefully improve the situation:

• Moved content that was really about domestic wastewater to the article on sewage treatment, therefore trimming this article right down.
• Removed some content about sewage treatment to make it clearer that this is the higher level overview article (even if in common language, wastewater treatment is often used to mean sewage treatment).
• Moved the management aspects (collection, disposal, reuse) from wastewater to wastewater treatment. Hopefully, it will be more obvious for future editors that such content is not missing from wastewater but exists at wastewater treatment.

Both articles have become quite small now, it says 2.2 kB readable prose for wastewater and 7 kB readable prose for wastewater treatment (the content of the excerpts seem to be not counted). EMsmile (talk) 07:04, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

No longer relevant, see comment above. EMsmile (talk) 06:38, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Definition of wastewater

You (Thewellman) said The wastewater article has been artificially limited to 12 kB by the relatively narrow definition provided by the first source citation. The wastewater treatment article contains another 20 kB even with that limited definition. In reality, wastewater also includes once-through cooling water and hydropower discharges with thermal changes and potentially minor chemical changes associated with dissolved gas equilibria or dissolution of piping materials.. I agree with you. I think we should make such a change, because it will also help to distinguish wastewater from sewage more. Do you have a suitable reference at your fingertips? If so, I invite you to add that content. Most likely this reference would be suitable?: EMsmile (talk) 04:50, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Actually, the sentence in question does include industrial wastewater. It says "Wastewater is "used water from any combination of domestic, industrial, commercial or agricultural activities, surface runoff or stormwater, and any sewer inflow or sewer infiltration". The wastewater that you mention (once-through cooling water and hydropower discharges) is included in the term "industrial activities", isn't it? Industrial activities include those for energy generation, I would have thought. We could make it more explicit though. EMsmile (talk) 05:40, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

I question if the single source citation for the lede definition accurately reflects the range of legal definitions I would expect from different jurisdictions regarding such issues as flooding and aquatic habitat damage in addition to health risks associated with ingestion by terrestrial organisms, and potentially including such things as maintaining reservoir inventories or navigable depths of rivers and canals, or excluding such things as irrigation return flows or storm water runoff. Thewellman (talk) 07:40, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't understand what you're saying. It might be best if you add some new sentences (with references) to the article? Then it might become clearer to me what you're getting at. EMsmile (talk) 07:44, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

I think this issue has now been resolved, after converting the article wastewater into a "list of similar articles". EMsmile (talk) 11:58, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

References

Where to from here (June 2021)?

I am trying to work out where this article is heading, now that we have drastically changed the wastewater article. Perhaps this means a drastic change is also called for for this article? The part of "types" is basically just a listing/overview. Then there is the section on "processes" which is meant to described processes that are applicable to all types of wastewater treatment. But I don't know if it's doing a good job of that. It keeps slipping into the area of sewage treatment. I wondering if the section on processes is better off drastically shortened (or even eliminated and the content moved to elsewhere). What I am pondering over:

1. Should the article that is currently called “sewage treatment” be renamed to "wastewater treatment"?
2. If so, should the article on “wastewater treatment” be deleted? Or renamed to “wastewater treatment (overview)” maybe?
3. If we say that wastewater treatment = sewage treatment ( = this is common language usage at present), then where does that leave industrial wastewater treatment and agricultural wastewater treatment?
4. Or another option would be to move the entire content that is currently at “sewage treatment” into the current “wastewater treatment” article; then rework that article so that it’s 80% sewage treatment but also has a section called “treatment of non-sewage wastewaters”.

Just brainstorming here. EMsmile (talk) 12:08, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Update: with the work that has happened since June 2021 on the articles wastewater and sewage treatment, I think it's OK to pretty much leave this article as is - like a short overview article. It's important to watch out so that future editors don't add content here which should rather be at sewage treatment. EMsmile (talk) 12:57, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Work needed on the section "Unit processes"

I am not satisfied with the current section "Unit processes" and wonder if it wouldn't be better to either delete or drastically shorten/rework it. I guess its original intention was to show which kinds of unit processes are the same for any type of wastewater treatment. But the reality is that it mostly refers back to "sewage treatment" and repeats what's there. Perhaps it's sufficient to have this article as almost like a disambiguation page where it just points the readers to the relevant sub-articles, i.e. sewage treatment, industrial wastewater treatment etc.? The way the unit processes section is currently set up it's half baked, it picks out a few random facts but leaves out a whole lot of others. E.g. it talks about biological oxidation then equates that with secondary treatment, then has a sub-heading for anaerobic treatment which is just one sentence. The anaerobic treatment processes also belong with secondary treatment and they are also included in sewage treatment and industrial wastewater treatment. So I really don't know if the section on Unit Processes serves a purposes or shouldn't be either dissolved or completely reworked. EMsmile (talk) 10:36, 26 August 2021 (UTC)